


You Really Mean That? - Mutual Pining

by Kat_trix7



Series: Smosh Writing Week 2019 [4]
Category: Smosh
Genre: F/M, Mutual Pining, Smosh Pit - Freeform, Smosh Writing Week 2019, SmoshWritingWeek2019, SmoshWritingWeek2019 - Day 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-19 23:39:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19982455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat_trix7/pseuds/Kat_trix7
Summary: “So are you going to stop being an idiot and tell Shayne how you feel tonight?”





	You Really Mean That? - Mutual Pining

**Author's Note:**

> Would you believe me that this was the most difficult prompt for me to write? It’s ironic because I basically exclusively write mutual pining slow burn fics. But for some reason I had a hard time with this one.
> 
> Also, this story is sort of based off personal experience. But there’s a slightly better ending in this fic as opposed to the endless will they/won’t they in my case. I hope you enjoy my painful memories lol

I hadn’t seen him in a while. It felt like ages since we had hung out, while in reality it had been just under two weeks. I didn’t blame him, we were both so busy, and without work forcing us into the same building for 8 hours a day, almost 5 days a week, Shayne and I hadn’t spent a lot of quality time together. Of course, we had shot some videos at Ian’s place but it wasn’t the same. We had to schedule time together as opposed to the easy reliability of knowing we would see each other every Monday morning at 9 am.

It was about a month and a half after the Defy shutdown when one of our mutual friends invited us to a housewarming party they were throwing on the other side of town. Since we live pretty close to each other, Shayne offered to give me a lift, which I readily excepted. About an hour before Shayne was set to pick me up, I was on FaceTime with Olivia, getting her opinion on what I should wear. I had pulled out a couple of options when Olivia asked me the question. 

“So are you going to stop being an idiot and tell Shayne how you feel tonight?” 

I was startled at her bluntness but I guess that was just Olivia, I shouldn’t be surprised. 

“God no.” I blushed. 

“Courtney,” Olivia whined exasperatedly. “You’ve been crushing on Shayne for almost a year. We aren’t under defy contracts anymore so there’s no bar against dating co-workers. Just go for it.”

“What about this shirt? Tucked into these pants?” I asked, ignoring her statement and holding up a ribbed pink sweater with and a pair of high-waisted dark jeans. 

“I like the jeans but maybe with that black top?” She replied before adding, “But let’s not change the subject here. If you’re not going to do it for yourself, at least tell him for me because I’m just about ready to just grab both your faces and push them together.”

“I don’t want to ruin anything between us. He’s one of my best friends Liv! And besides, I don’t know if he feels the same way about me.”

“Jesus Courtney, I promise he has feelings for you too.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. It’s obvious. Shayne’s just not one to make a move unless you literally spell it out for him that you’re interested.”

I rolled my eyes at her through the phone. “Will you just drop it? I don’t want to tell him how I feel, ok?”

“Fine, be that way.” Olivia pouted at me. “But have fun tonight, and send me pics!”

After assuring her that I would send her pictures, I hung up the phone and went to finish getting ready. I had just finished touching up my makeup when Shayne texted me that he was outside.

“You look nice,” he grinned as I settled into the passenger seat. “You know this is a housewarming party and not a premier, right?”

“Oh shut up,” I said rolling my eyes at him. “I’m just going to take that as a compliment.”

“Go for it,” he replied, pulling out onto the main road from my apartment parking lot, and I hit his arm. “Hey hey, not while I’m driving!” he laughed, his car swerving a bit. We fell into our easy banter as we drove towards the party, and I pushed Olivia’s words to the back of my mind, just trying to be in the moment and have a good time with Shayne.

“Looks like we’re sort of early,” He said, when we finally parked in front of our friend Shelby’s house. It was just past 7 pm and there were a couple cars parked outside but other than that the street was sort of quiet.

“I just realized how adult we are,” I babbled, following Shayne to the front door. “we’re going to a house warming party. That’s crazy.”

“I know. When did we get this damn old?” He replied wistfully. We shared a grin before he knocked at the door. A moment later Shelby pulled it open and pulled Shayne into a hug.

“So glad you could make it!” She sang, letting go of Shayne and pulling me into a hug as well.

“Glad to be here.” I replied with a smile.

“Not everyone’s here yet, but why don’t you guys go hang out in the living room. More people will be showing up soon.”

“Sounds good,” Shayne nodded, and I followed him towards the large open seating space towards the back of the house.

Shelby and Shayne had been friends for years, while her and I had only become friends fairly recently. It was really nice of her to have invited me over for the party as well. But it was one of those situations where I didn’t really know anyone there besides for Shayne and Shelby. So, I just nodded and smiled as Shayne exchanged hellos with a few people until we sat down on a sofa in the living room.

I was laughing at something stupid Shayne was saying about work when a tall guy with dark brown hair pulled up a chair and sat down in front of us. I had only a moment to be startled by his sudden appearance before he stuck out his hand.

“Hey, I’m John,” he said, in an overly confident voice. I took his hand and shook it quickly before introducing both Shayne and myself.

“So how do you know Shelby?”

“We go way back,” Shayne replied.

“And we’re fairly new friends,” I added. John nodded at me and then pointed between the two of us.

“So are you two together?” he asked, leaning forward in his seat.

I coughed at his words before nervous laughter bubbled from my lips. “What? No, no. We’re just friends.”

John grinned, “Oh the type of friends who are just friends now but are going to ultimately end up together?”

I felt my cheeks turning red and I looked to Shayne for help, but he stayed weirdly silent. Turning back to John I replied, “No, that’s definitely not us. We really are just friends.” I said, adding another laugh to show how ridiculous the thought of us being together is. “Right Shayne?”

Shayne nodded from beside me, a tight smile on his lips. “Yeah. We’re just friends.”

“Ok, cool.” John said, leaning backwards

His question had definitely thrown me off and I felt incredibly awkward sitting between him and Shayne as the house started filling up with more people. Did I give off such a strong vibe that I liked Shayne that it was just obvious to random strangers? God. I hoped not.

A few more people joined our group in the living room and John asked a few more small talk questions which I mostly answered as Shayne remained pretty silent, only adding in a couple comments here and there.

“Do you want to go get drinks?” Shayne asked me suddenly.

“Um, sure!” I answered and he smiled as he got up from his seat and offered a hand to pull me up as well. We headed into the kitchen and I was pouring myself a drink when Shelby tapped me on the arm.

“Ok, don’t look now but John is definitely checking you out.” Shelby whispered to me.

“He so is not,” I said, my eyes darting towards the living room, where sure enough, John was gazing in my direction.

“He so is,” Shelby pressed. “You agree with me, right Shayne?”

“You’re being crazy, he definitely is not.” Shayne chuckled but he avoided my eyes, making himself busy with filling his plate. I tried not to feel hurt. There was definitely something up with Shayne. He hadn’t been acting normal since we got here.

“Are you ok?” I asked, and he looked up at me surprised.

“Yeah of course I am.”

I didn’t quite believe his words though.

We ended up hanging out with Shelby in the kitchen for a bit, just talking and finishing our drinks. I was having a good time but I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something up with Shayne. He seemed a little distracted, and like he was trying to act like everything was normal when it wasn’t.

After a while I excused myself to use the washroom down the hall. I freshened up and after fixing my hair, I headed back towards the kitchen to find Shayne, but on my way, I was intercepted by John.

“Cool party huh?” he asked, one arm braced against the wall, leaning on a bit closer than a comfortable distance to me.

“Uh, yeah,” I smiled politely, taking a small step back.

“I’m used to bigger parties of course, working in the industry. You know how it is.” He smirked, “but it’s always nice to come to something like this.”

“Definitely,” I nodded, still trying to be polite, although I was vibing this guy less and less. He seemed like a typical LA influencer, hinting at his connections and thinking too highly of himself. 

“It’s smaller get togethers like this though where you can really meet people.” He said and I nodded again, not saying anything, my brain working to find a way out of the conversation.

“So you said you work in sketch comedy, that must be pretty cool.”

“Yah, I really like it, and the people I work with are amazing which is a great bonus.” I replied, glancing around to see where Shayne had disappeared to. I finally spotted him across the room. He was already looking over at us, and moments later he was tapping me on the shoulder.

“Hey, let’s head out.”

“Now?” I asked, surprised. We had been at the party for barely 2 hours and it was still in full swing. But Shayne just nodded, telling John some excuse about how he had an early day tomorrow and needed to get home.

“I can give you a lift home instead if you need Courtney.” John offered and I felt Shayne stiffen beside me.

“Oh don’t worry about it, I’m good to leave now.” I shook my head with a smile. I couldn’t imagine spending any more time with that guy.

“Are you sure? We could hang out here a little longer and then-”

“She said she was fine, man.” Shayne snapped. His posture was incredibly rigid, much more so than usual, and he motioned from me to follow him towards the door.

“Um well it was nice to meet you.” I called over my shoulder to John as I hurried to catch up with my friend.

I quickly followed after Shayne out the front door and down the street towards his car. He was walking at a fast pace and it was almost hard for me to keep up.

“Shayne. Shayne wait.” I said, reached out to grab his shoulder. He stopped short at my touch and I almost crashed into him before he turned around to face me.

“What?” he asked, I couldn’t place his expression, he looked almost angry, and I swallowed.

“Don’t, ‘what’ me. What’s up with you?” I asked, my annoyance and confusion slipping into my voice.

“I don’t know what you mean.” He shrugged, his casual dismissal of the issue fueled my exasperation even more.

“The hell you don’t. You’ve been acting weird all night!” I argued. “You were so quiet and then like, sulky,” Shayne opened his mouth to interrupt me, but I carried on. “You wanted to leave early even though you’re closer to Shelby than I am, and then you were so rude to John-”

“John was a douche bag.” Shayne said angrily.

“Ok, he was a bit interesting but he definitely didn’t deserve for you to snap at him.” I shot back. “I don’t know what’s up with you tonight.”

Shayne deflated at my words. “I know. You’re right. I shouldn’t have snapped at him.”

“So then why did you?” I questioned.

Shayne looked at a loss for how to answer. He stared at me a moment before asking softly, “Do you really not know?”

I just shook my head at him.

Shayne looked conflicted, as if he didn’t know whether he should say what he was thinking or not, but then he just blurted out the words I never imagined he would say.

“I have feelings for you Courtney.”

I felt as though the wind was knocked out of me and I just blinked at Shayne in shock as he continued speaking.

“I know I shouldn’t, and I know that I shouldn’t be telling you. I never wanted to say anything because I really care about you as a friend and I wouldn’t ever want to lose that. I’ve like you for a while, maybe since I met you. But I know you only see me as a friend, and I get. I mean you made that really clear tonight.”

His last statement snapped me out of my shocked state and I started laughing. Shayne’s brows furrowed in confusion.

“Ok, I’ll admit I didn’t really see this reaction coming. I mean Jesus Courtney, ouch.” He joked, and I took a few breaths to calm myself before it could speak.

“Shayne, I was 100% bullshitting in there when I said that I saw you as a just friend. His question threw me off and I felt so awkward. You were right next to me, so I had to play it off.” I breathed, still grinning nervously. “Damn I’m a better actress than I thought.”

“Wait you mean…”

“I mean I like you too you idiot.” I laughed, and this time he put a hand on my shoulder and pulled me closer.

“You really mean that?” he grinned, looking down into my eyes.

“Absolutely.” I said, before tilting my head up and pressing my lips against his.


End file.
